Vehicle

This application claims priority to Japanese Patent Application No. 2024-025742 filed on Feb. 22, 2024, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

The present disclosure relates to vehicles.

It is known that the idle speed of an engine changes with a change in load of auxiliary equipment on the engine (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 11-141369 (JP 11-141369 A)).

For example, when the idle speed indicated by a tachometer changes with a change in load of the auxiliary equipment in a short time in an idle state, the driver may misunderstand that the behavior of the engine in the idle state is unstable.

An object of the present disclosure is to provide a vehicle that avoids a driver misunderstanding that the behavior of an engine in an idle state is unstable.

The above object can be achieved by a vehicle including:

The control device includes

When the determination of the change determination unit is negative, the calculation unit may calculate the slowly changing idle speed with the degree of smoothing smaller than when the determination of the change determination unit is affirmative.

The vehicle may further include a deviation determination unit that determines whether the actual idle speed deviates from the target idle speed. When either or both of the determination of the change determination unit and a determination of the deviation determination unit are negative, the calculation unit may calculate the slowly changing idle speed with the degree of smoothing smaller than when the determination of the change determination unit and the determination of the deviation determination unit are affirmative.

The calculation unit may calculate a slowly changing rotational speed obtained by smoothing an actual rotational speed of the engine during traveling of the vehicle with a predetermined degree of smoothing.

The degree of smoothing used to calculate the slowly changing rotational speed may be smaller than the degree of smoothing used to calculate the slowly changing idle speed.

The calculation unit may calculate the slowly changing idle speed by dividing a sum of the actual idle speeds of a predetermined number of data detected successively by the number of data, and may reduce the degree of smoothing by reducing the number of data.

The present disclosure can provide a vehicle that avoids a driver misunderstanding that the behavior of an engine in an idle state is unstable.

is a schematic configuration diagram of a vehicleaccording to the present embodiment. In, a vehicleincludes an engine, a torque converter, an automatic transmission, a propeller shaft, an axle, drive wheels, and auxiliary equipment. The vehiclefurther includes an ECU (Electronic Control Unit), a sensor group, and a display device. The engineis a driving force source for traveling. The torque converteris a fluid transmission connected to the engine. The automatic transmissionis connected to the torque converter. Power from the engineis transmitted to the automatic transmissionvia the torque converter. The propeller shaftis connected to the output shaftof the automatic transmission. The differential gearingis coupled to the propeller shaft. The drive wheelsare connected to a differential gearingvia an axle. The auxiliary equipmentis driven by the engine. The auxiliary equipmentis, for example, an air compressor.

ECUis an electronic control unit including an arithmetic processing unit that performs various arithmetic processing related to travel control of the vehicle, and a memory in which a control program and data are stored. ECUis an exemplary control device, and the engine control unit, the acquisition unit, the change determination unit, the calculation unit, the display control unit, and the deviation determination unit, which will be described later, are functionally realized.

The sensor groupand the display deviceare electrically connected to ECU. The sensor groupincludes a vehicle speed sensor, a crank angle sensor, and an accelerator operation amount sensor. The vehicle speed sensor detects the vehicle speed of the vehicle. The crank angle sensor detects the rotational speed of the engine. The accelerator operation amount sensor detects an accelerator operation amount that is an amount of operation of the accelerator pedal. The display deviceis, for example, a liquid crystal display arranged on a dashboard. The ECUcauses the display deviceto display a tachometer indicating the rotational speed of the engine.

The ECUcontrols the engineso that the actual idle speed of the enginebecomes the target idle speed when the engineis in the idle state. Specifically, the ECUcontrols the fuel injection amount and the empty milk-air amount of the engineso that the actual idle speed becomes the target idle speed. The target idle speed is set to be higher as the load of the auxiliary equipmenton the engineis larger. For example, when the auxiliary equipmentis an air compressor, the load of the auxiliary equipmenton the engineis larger when the air conditioner in the vehicle cabin is on than when the air conditioner is off. Therefore, the target idle speed is set to be higher so that the enginedoes not stall due to an increase in load of the auxiliary equipment. The above processing is an example of the process that is performed by the engine control unit.

ECUcalculates the slowly changing idle speed based on the actual idle speed of the enginein the idle state detected by the crank angle sensor. The slowly changing idle speed is an idle speed calculated by smoothing the actual idle speed with a predetermined degree of smoothing. The slowly changing idle speed changes more slowly than the actual idle speed. As will be described in detail later, the ECUperforms rotational speed display control for displaying the slowly changing idle speed on the tachometer of the display device.

is a time chart illustrating the actual idle speed and the slowly changing idle speed.illustrates a case where the actual idle speed detected by the crank angle sensor rises from a constant value and becomes constant again. An example is shown in which the actual idle speed changes in order of R, R, . . . and the slowly changing idle speed changes in order of r, r, . . . . The slowly changing idle speed changes slower than the actual idle speed.

The slowly changing idle speed is calculated as follows. For example, the sum Tn of the actual idle speeds R, R, R. . . , Rn of a predetermined number of data n detected successively is calculated. Next, a value obtained by dividing the sum Tn by the number of data n is calculated as the slowly changing idle speed. In other words, the slowly changing idle speed is an average value of the actual idle speeds. For example, the degree of smoothing is adjusted by increasing or decreasing the number of data n used to calculate the slowly changing idle speed. As the number of data n increases, the degree of smoothing increases. That is, as the number of data n increases, the slowly changing idle speed gradually changes with respect to the actual idle speed. The smaller the number of data n, the smaller the degree of smoothing. That is, as the number of data n decreases, the slowly changing idle speed changes so as to approach the actual idle speed. The number of data n is an integer of 2 or more.

The example ofshows the slowly changing idle speed when the number of data n=4. By dividing the sum T1 of the actual idle speeds R, R, R, Rby, the slowly changing idle speed ris calculated. Next, the slowly changing idle speed ris calculated by dividing the sum T2 of the actual idle speeds R, R, R, Rby. In this way, the slowly changing idle speed is also calculated at the timing when the actual idle speed is detected. In this way, the slowly changing idle speed is calculated by a simple method. Rotation speed display control

is a flowchart illustrating the rotation speed display control. First, ECUdetermines whether the vehicleis at a stop and the engineis in an idle state (S). If Sis Yes, ECUdetermines whether the accelerator operation amount is zero and the target idle speed is changing (S). When the amount of change per unit time in target idle speed is equal to or larger than the threshold, it is determined that the target idle speed is changing. Sis an example of the process that is performed by the change determination unit.

If Sis Yes, ECUacquires the actual idle speed and determines whether the actual idle speed is deviated from the target idle speed (S). Specifically, when the difference between the actual idle speed and the target idle speed is equal to or larger than the threshold, it is determined that the actual idle speed deviates from the target idle speed. Sis an example of the process that is performed by the deviation determination unit.

If Sis Yes, the ECUcalculates the slowly changing idle speed using the number of data nA (S). Thus, even when the load of the auxiliary equipmenton the enginechanges in the idle state, the slowly changing idle speed indicated by the tachometer changes slowly. This avoids the driver misunderstanding that the behavior of the enginein the idle state is unstable. Sis an example of the process that is performed by the acquisition unit and the calculation unit.

For No in either Sor S, the ECUcalculates the slowly changing idle speed using the number of data nB (S). The number of data nB is smaller than the number of data nA. That is, the degree of smoothing in Sis smaller than the degree of smoothing in S. Sis an example of the process that is performed by the acquisition unit and the calculation unit. For example, when the actual idle speed is increased by depressing the accelerator pedal while the vehicle is at a stop and idling (No in S), the slowly changing idle speed is calculated with a relatively small degree of smoothing (S). As a result, the driver can check the rotational speed of the engineindicated by the tachometer and check the responsiveness of the engine. Also, when the target idle speed is constant or when the actual idle speed is converging to the target idle speed (No in S), the slowly changing idle speed is calculated with a relatively small degree of smoothing (S). This is because the target idle speed and the actual idle speed are stable.

When Sis No, the vehicleis considered to be traveling, and ECUcalculates the slowly changing rotational speed by the number of data nC based on the actual rotational speed of the engine(S). Here, the number of data nC is smaller than the number of data nB. That is, the degree of smoothing in Sis smaller than the degree of smoothing in Sand S. Therefore, the slowly changing rotational speed calculated in Sis closer to the actual rotational speed than the slowly changing idle speed calculated in Sand S. As a result, the driver can appropriately grasp the change in the rotational speed of the enginein accordance with the change in the accelerator operation amount during traveling.

ECUcauses the tachometer of the display deviceto display the slowly changing idle speed or slowly changing rotational speed calculated as described above (S). Sis an example of the process that is performed by the display control unit.

is a timing chart illustrating the rotation speed display control.shows the transition of the vehicle speed, the on-off state of the air compressor which is an example of the auxiliary equipment, the engine speed, and the number of data n acceleration described above. When the air compressor is turned on while the vehicle speed is 0 (Yes in S), the target idle speed increases (Yes in S). Further, the actual rotational speed follows the target idle speed (Yes in S). Further, the number of data n used to calculate the slowly changing idle speed increases from the number of data nB to the number of data nA (S, time t). After that, when the target idle speed becomes constant (No in S), the number of data n decreases from the number of data nA to the number of data nB (S, time t).

After that, when the air compressor is turned off, the target idle speed decreases (Yes in S), the actual idle speed deviates from the target idle speed (Yes in S), and the number of data n increases from the number of data nB to the number of data nA (S, time t). After that, when the target idle speed becomes constant (No in S), the number of data n decreases from the number of data nA to the number of data nB (S, time t).

When the traveling of the vehicleis started (No in S), the number of data n is decreased from the number of data nB to the number of data nC (S, time t). During traveling, the engineis controlled based on the target torque. Therefore, the target idle speed does not change even during traveling.

The calculation of the slowly changing idle speed may be performed, for example, by multiplying the actual idle speed by a constant coefficient K of less than 1. In this case, the closer the coefficient K is to 1, the more the degree of smoothing decreases.

Although the embodiments of the present disclosure have been described in detail above, the present disclosure is not limited to such specific embodiments, and various modifications and changes can be made within the scope of the gist of the present disclosure described in the claims.